This is one of those books where every page seems to provide something to think about. I haven't read much on prison reform before now, so possibly the ideas in the book will be less groundbreaking for people who have more experience in this area, but I found it really great to see ideas for what transformative justice could really look like.

For anyone who has ever had someone mockingly say "so you'd just let criminals go free, would you?" in response to their beliefs about the racist nature of the carceral state, this book provides huge amounts of information to formulate a good response and hopefully get people to think a little more critically about the true nature of the criminal justice system as it stands.

A super thought-provoking look at the effects of incarceration and the intersection with schooling and other social institutions. This book was super uncomfortable to read at times, and gave me a lot to think about. At the end, I wish for a bit more "and here's what to do about it" but the truth is that it's a super complex issue that requires replacement of systems with other things, not an abolishment of one system but failure to provide social support and services. I've been recommending this to anyone interested in social justice work. Thanks to the publisher for a NetGalley.

A detailed look at the ways in which calls for prison reform can lead to the support and strengthening of alternative tactics (i.e. electronic monitoring, surveillance, house arrest, etc.) and their damaging impacts.

Wow, this was an outstanding book, that serves as a cautionary tale on past failed prison reform, to inform and enlighten the current movement away from mass incarceration and towards rehabilitative models.

The history of incarceration in a necessity part of social reform, however, I have read other books on this topic. This book does not seem to offer useful alternatives. While this book raises many concerns about the ineffective nature of the status quo—it did not recognize certain necessities. There were statements like “accept different psychologies.” While this sounds brilliant, as someone who has climbed into the system, I can’t reconcile acceptance for psychology that enjoys raping children between the ages of 4-6. Not seeing it.
Abolition, as well as “do nothing” options presented in the book seem to support simply doing nothing. Let them return to rape their siblings and neighbors again? Don’t criminalize them? Just accept them?
I would have liked to submit feedback privately, however, I have only the options to not submit feedback or to submit feedback publicly. As a reader, I cannot ignore the true evil that I have encountered. I can’t turn that experience off while reading. I live the experience as a teacher and a victim of sexual assault. The historical research seemed accurate, but the authors should spend some time working with those individuals who rape girls to death and laugh about their screams before they decide to end incarceration. There are truly violent people who enjoy the pain and suffering of others.
5 years ago, my reaction to the book would have been different. But those 5 years were spent in juvenile detention. Before writing a book about prison alternatives, I feel that the authors should spend the time to come up with solutions that can protect those in need of protection. Talk to the victims of rape, what do they want to become of their rapist? (It is probably not just set them free.)

This was a markedly uncomfortable read that I will be thinking about for some time. I’ve already asked two friends to read it because I want to be able to discuss its contents in more depth.

In order to review this, I need to comment on why I even noticed it. I rarely choose to read non-fiction, because I like my reading time to be enjoyable, an escape. Prior to this year, this title would barely have registered with me. If you’d asked me what I knew about abolitionism, I’d think of the graffiti and posters in the Inner West that say “kill your landlord and keep your rent money”. I’d say they were all extreme Marxists. I’d be happy to have a conversation about aspects of socialism that I do find attractive. I would definitely not question our need for police, courts, prison. When this year’s Black Lives Matter protests started, I was quite taken aback by calls to abolish police and prisons. Abolish racism, definitely. But I’d say improve police training, hold violent police more accountable. I’ll be honest, the idea of abolishing the police scared me. I’ll be even more honest: it still does. I can’t say this book has completely changed my mind. However, this book is well written and thought provoking, and has left me feeling like it’s not as straightforward as I thought it was.

This book is surprisingly readable. It taught me a lot about the “prison industrial complex” in the United States, which is to the best of my knowledge quite different to here in Australia. It made me reflect on what it might be like not to trust police instinctively. Of course, I expect “good” and “bad” people everywhere, and know that some police would abuse their powers. But as a white, middle class, educated, working woman in Australia, I do indeed naturally see police as, for the most part, on my side. I’ve also never questioned the need for prisons. Sure, I think there are people in them who don’t deserve it, but no, it has never occurred to me to question whether or not some people need to be locked away. This book calls on statistics about recidivism to suggest that prison is not preventing various crimes, and therefore is not serving any purpose except pure punishment. It also points out that social inequities lead to certain people being more likely to end up in the system thus showing how it can be perpetuating racism, classism and other prejudices.

As a healthcare worker, the most difficult part of this book for me was reading about other “institutions” like child services, foster care, substance use and mental health services. I wouldn’t have said we’ve got all this right. I know the system has problems. But it’s a hard sell to suggest we should be without these systems entirely.

I’m glad I read this book. As I mentioned, I will be thinking about it and talking about it for some time to come, as I work out exactly where I stand.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read an ARC in return for my honest opinion.

Perfectly timed, Prison By Any Other Name is an in-depth review of all forms of incarceration in the US, and why the system needs to be completely overhauled, by focusing on harmful reforms. The authors provide important information on how certain reforms over the years are really only “reforms” in name, and cause possibly even more damage than regular behind-bars-prison (electronic monitoring for example, supposedly a more “gentle” form of incarceration, is actually more invasive and is used in greater numbers, leading to more harm and pain in entire families and communities).

Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law use real life examples of people who have been caught up in the system in different ways to illustrate their points, and this really helps the seriousness of the issues hit home. These individual stories are extremely important as they provide a more accurate overview of how the current system targets Black and Brown people, is extremely biased and unfair, pushing poor communities further into poverty, criminalizing immigrants and refugees, punishing children whose brains are not fully developed, etc. Nothing about our current system and the way it is ingrained into our society promotes rehabilitation, care, or rebuilding. Personal narratives show the true damage that this system causes, and how that damage becomes part of the overall generational trauma that hurts families and communities.

The authors did a great job of covering many areas: drug courts and mandated treatment, mental health convictions, electronic monitoring, foster care and family incarceration, the sex offender registry, neighborhood/community policing, amongst others. Illustrating how each aspect, even if it is aimed at “helping”, usually works to drag people into a system that affects not only themselves but everyone around them, and is very difficult to get out of. I personally really appreciated the chapter on the issues with the sex offender registry, as it gave me more insight into how it is definitely not working in the way that most people assume it does, and how the registry, and all of the restrictions imposed on those on the registry are much more harmful than we think.

In the last section of the book the authors provide us with different solutions that would help abolish the police nation that the US currently is. Unlike bipartisan “reforms” that have up until now just expanded incarceration, these solutions could provide real change: but it is up to us to demand these changes, and to make the community efforts needed to work towards the abolition of prisons, whether they are in institutions or in our own homes and schools.

A must read, especially if you are interested in learning more about incarceration and why people are demanding the abolition of the police state and mass incarceration.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The topic of Prison by Any Other Name is fascinating and incredibly pertinent to overdue discussions. I wonder if I was confused about what the focus was, because it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I was hoping to read about some of the more futuristic methods of criminal justice (such as AI tracking and predictive crime mapping) and how these are still oppressive. I learned some interesting facts and perspectives, particularly about mental health disparities and electronic monitoring, that I will take with me.

Overall, I think the book could benefit from a bit more conciseness, as well as anticipation and deconstruction of counter-arguments earlier in the book. I recommend it to those looking for an impactful and thought-provoking nonfiction book.

Note: I received a free ebook copy of Prison by Any Other Name from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book is coming out at a perfect time as the United States is discussing criminal justice reform and police abolition in a serious way. They explained how and why so many previous reforms have backfired, and it's a useful cautionary tale. I found the sections on schools and child welfare to be particularly eye-opening. I interviewed the authors for the Modern Law Library podcast, and they were insightful and engaging guests. That episode will go live on 6/22/20, the day after this book is published.

You never really stop and think about all the ways in which the courts, police, criminal justice system as a whole target and supervise a population. This book is an eye opener in the myriad of ways in which the police state creeps into our lives.

As a former probation officer, I can agree with just about everything in the book. From the tough crack down on minorities, to the mandated treatment, I have seen it play out in front of my eyes.

I really enjoyed the conclusion on what may be possible without a police state. And let me be clear, the authors are NOT advocating for a total removal of prisons, just a different way in which we find ourselves entangled in the criminal justice system.

The one part I disagreed with is, is the mandated treatment. I think that some people need treatment to be mandated. They don't necessarily want it, but they may learn from it. Every hint of knowledge is and should be encouraged.

Overall a very thought provoking book.

I received an ARC from Netgalley and the publishers for this honest review. THank you.

"Prison by Any Other Name" by Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law, with a foreward by Michelle Alexander, is a nonfiction work about all the ways that Americans are held in a carceral state outside of prison walls. This boundary-pushing book expanded my knowledge of "e-carceration," which I first learned about in Alexander's 2018 NYTimes article, "The Newest Jim Crow." It also provided me with an extensive education about the severely negative impacts of forced drug treatment, drug courts, school police, and police surveillance as a whole, among other topics. This book shines the light right in your eyes about how we need to replace our endless methods of incarcerating people, namely black, brown, Indigenous, and low-income people, with the tools to nourish their bodies and minds to care for themselves and their families, and to be productive and contributing members of their communities. I'm hoping everyone interested in learning more about dismantling the United Carceral States of America reads this book and that it finds a place on the many anti-racist reading lists being circulated today.

I'm being completely serious - if you're going to read any book coming out this summer, make it this one. It is an incredible feat of journalism and research, one that highlights and explores many aspects of the justice and prison system in America. I seriously cannot recommend this enough.

Schenwar and Law explore the different means of policing and surveillance in the US: probation, jail, house arrest, mandatory treatment etc. Not only do they approach their topic from nearly all possible angles, but their work is marked by footnotes and further bibliography and resources, so you're fully able to find further readings, should you wish to do so. They make specific mentions of cases and people; instead of providing their audience with generic statements, they use cases that prove their point: the inefficiency and inherent cruelty of the system. They also highlight initiatives and activist groups in the US, many of which I was not familiar with, so if you are looking for ways to help, this book could, once again, guide you towards the right direction.

Despite their work being relatively short, they manage to cover a variety of topic and tackle plenty of important issues, like drug addiction and recovery, instances of disproportionate and often unfair psychological diagnosis, the role of the 13th amendment within the prison system, even cases of sex offenders and their living conditions after their convictions. They treat all issues with a humanity, love, and kindness that can only result from years studying the justice system and being appalled by its state. It is a brilliant piece of work, very relevant to the current socio-political climate, building upon the works of pioneering Black activists, like Angela Davis or Assata Shakur.

Because of the book's current significance, I thought I might include some book/movie recommendations and links I found useful in expanding my understanding of the current situation as well as the history of racism and the prison system in America.


Books:

The Hate U Give
Are Prisons Obsolete?

Movies:

The Hate U Give
Blindspotting
13th
When They See Us

BLM's #DefundThePolice:

https://blacklivesmatter.com/defundth...

Eye Opening Yet Flawed. From a standard sociological talking point side, this book is eye opening yet also perfectly in-line (almost within perfect lock-step, in fact) with current sociological understanding – or at least my own understanding of current sociological understanding. (And this, from a guy that *long ago* presented at a sociological conference as a college freshman – just to establish that I do in fact have a *modicum* of academic understanding here. 😉 ) In the forward, Michelle Alexander shows that despite the years, her own blinders and biases are still perfectly in place – but also sets the overall tone for the book. In short, this does for government controls outside the actual mass incarceration system what Alexander’s The New Jim Crow did for the mass incarceration system and what Radley Balko’s Rise of the Warrior Cop did for the actual history of police militarization and brutality in the US. Indeed, ultimately this is a book that belongs in the same libraries and conversations as those two magnum opuses as a definitive text on the issue that every single person in America needs to read. Yes, it is *that* powerful, even for someone who has read both of the aforementioned books, who has been an activist for quite some time, and know knows more about these issues than many, perhaps most, people currently talking about them in media (either professional or social).

Its critical flaws are similar to Alexanders’ own: it has a near laser focus on race as the root cause. Where this book gains the extra star above Alexander’s book is that key word “near”. Schenwar and Law do a commendable job of listing other leading causes of these issues – chiefly, being poor no matter the color of your skin – even while most often listing race as the most common cause. At that point, I’m more willing to call six of one/ half a dozen of the other, it is so well balanced here.

But arguably the biggest flaw of the book is that even while constantly preaching about the perils of government control systems, it still manages to advocate for *more*… government control systems, simply targeting other people. Even as it preaches community and alternatives to police, prison, and the various systems described in the book, it still ultimately demands ever more government programs rather than the true community Schenwar and Law claim to want. Rather than praising Anarchy and demanding a complete overthrow of the very government systems that cause the very problems they so accurately describe, they ultimately choose to love Big Brother even while asking him to be a little bit nicer.

And just as this ending is the ultimate tragedy of Orwell’s 1984, so too it is the ultimate tragedy of this otherwise stupendous polemic. Recommended.